


Distorted Images

by advanced_fanatic



Series: Bungou Stray Archives Alternate Timelines [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: 187 huh, Gen, Mentioned Edogawa Ranpo (Bungou Stray Dogs), Mentioned Sakaguchi Ango (Bungou Stray Dogs), Mentioned Tachihara Michizou (Bungou Stray Dogs), Mentioned Yosano Akiko (Bungou Stray Dogs), hahahahhhaaaaaa, it gave me distortion feelings, so guess what au i'm semi-revisiting?, sooooo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27545278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advanced_fanatic/pseuds/advanced_fanatic
Summary: Traversing the fear hellscape, Kunikida and Fukuzawa come upon a familiar face.
Relationships: Fukuzawa Yukichi & Kunikida Doppo (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Series: Bungou Stray Archives Alternate Timelines [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013463
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Distorted Images

It was in the Desolation domain that they finally saw it. Kunikida knew that the Distortion had been following them--he had seen its door pop up several times since the world had ended, and he was sure Shachou had noticed it even more. Shachou had even tried to smite it, twice, although both times it had vanished before the Eye could truly focus in on it.

Shachou had explained, after the world Changed and Yosano vanished, how it had entered his office and stabbed him just as he had reached for a Statement, and after a short argument had left, and then the Statement...was more than a Statement. Kunikida could still remember crouching down and gripping Ranpo’s hand as Shachou’s voice floated out of his office, thick with power:  _ “You who watch and know and understand none. You who listen and hear and will not comprehend. You who wait and wait and drink in all that is not yours by right…” _ Shachou had told them about how he had believed it to be their friend, a helpful entity, a good monster. He had told them he was wrong, and that they were not to trust it. Kunikida did not think he was capable of trusting any monsters, but Shachou claimed to be just as monstrous as the rest of them and  _ he _ was trustworthy, so Kunikida had decided to just agree and get on with things. And get on they had.

Yosano had vanished already, gone off to track down Lucy Montgomery and hadn’t made it back before everything Changed. Ranpo had wandered off after a few Domains, endlessly curious, promising that he would meet them again once they found Mori. Kunikida was the only Assistant to stick with Shachou. He knew that, like Yosano, he had his own Domain (the terror of running out of time, an increasing deadline, knowing that you could ask for help, an extension, anything, but too ashamed to do so), and that, like Ranpo, he could safely travel through the domains, but...he’d already lost so much. Both his friends and fellow-Assistants were gone, and the Dazai he’d thought he’d known was just another monster, an imposter. He had asked Shachou to smite it, and even though he knew it wasn’t real, the face of his boyfriend screaming in agony still haunted his dreams. Shachou had assured him that their Dazai was dead, and had been since they were sixteen. Kunikida wished he had time to mourn, but--they were going to set the world to rights. They had to.

But now the Distortion was here, as Nakahara Chuuya ranted about mackerels and old friendships and fire, fire, fire. The Distortion’s door was right behind Chuuya, and as a literal tower of flame shot up from his torso in a way reminiscent of Hades from the Disney movie  _ Hercules, _ the door swung open.

The thing that came out of it was both familiar and unfamiliar, the way you might feel upon seeing a person or a place from a dream you once had. It was grinning, widely, and covered in shifting, swirling bandages. It leaned against the doorframe, one foot kicked up on it, like a zigzag, or a cut with a knife.

“The fuck are you looking at?” Chuuya snapped, and turned. He went still. “You absolute bastard!” he howled. “I thought you were  _ dead!” _

“hELLo, chiBi, ShAcHOu, KuNiKiDA.”

Kunikida was about to question how it knew their names, and why it called Shachou “Shachou” and not “Archivist” when Shachou nudged Kunikida slightly behind him and spoke.

“Hello, Dazai. What do you want?”

Kunikida froze.

“wHy, juST To sAy HELLo tO soME Of mY fAvoRiTE pEoPLe, oF CouRsE!”

“I’m going to fucking murder you!” howled Chuuya, flames lighting him and the world and everything else. The screams from Tachihara Michizou’s apartment building that he’d been dicking around in crescendoed as everything became fire and recrimination.

_ Dazai’s dead, _ Shachou had told him.  _ The Distortion isn’t our friend. I had thought I could trust it, but I was wrong. _

“I am going to be sick,” Kunikida decided, before leaning over and doing just that. Shachou held back his hair for him.

“kUNikIdA, ArE yoU aLRiGhT?” asked the Distortion.

“Get away from him,” Shachou snapped.

The Distortion made an over-exaggerated pouting face  _ (Dazai was always so dramatic) _ “MeAN, ShAcHoU! I oNLy wAnTeD To heLp!”

Shachou shook his head. “You’re lying.”

Its smiled widened. “oF couRsE NoT! hOw RudE!” It shifted closer, and Shachou put himself between them again.

“Don’t you have better things to do then to bother us?” he asked dryly. Kunikida’s hands found his Ideal notebook and wondered how they’d gotten here.

Oh, he knew the facts, of course. Shachou had told him and Ranpo both. But...he hadn’t mentioned that the Distortion was wearing Dazai’s face. That it seemed to--to the best Kunikida’s fractured memories could tell--be  _ imitating _ him.

_ “The Distortion…” Shachou had said, “it makes itself out as something trustworthy--or maybe not. Something that is your friend--but turns on you, your enemy--but helps you. It straddles the line between friend and foe, never doing something so terrible you can’t find it in yourself to forgive it, but never risking itself for you either.” _

_ “You’re wrong,” Sakaguchi Ango, avatar of the Lonely, had snapped as they traversed his domain. “It might not be  _ your _ friend, Archivist, but it’s mine.” _

_ “That’s what it wants you to think,” Shachou had said, “and it chose a damned good face for it, too.” _

“touChE, ShAcHoU,” the Distortion said. “I cAn SeE i’M noT WaNTeD. WeLL tHEn. gooDbYe!”

“Wait, fucker!” shouted Chuuya, but the Distortion ducked back into its door and vanished. Chuuya looked at Shachou and Kunikida, eyes wild. “Did you know?!” he shouted. “Did you know that fucker was still alive?!”

Kunikida shook his head. He didn’t trust his own throat to speak.

“Dazai Osamu died six years ago,” Shachou said shortly. “That monster only wears his face to get us to let our guard down around it.”

Chuuya shook his head. “The bastard always did that. Doesn’t change now that he’s a hallway. I’m going to find him.”

Shachou just shook his head again, and they watched as Chuuya stomped away.


End file.
